17 year old boy knocks man to ground and starts beating him

The man had followed the boy. The boy was unarmed. As far as we can tell, the boy hit the man, knocked him to the ground, got on top of him, and started to beat the man about the head.

Was the man justified in shooting the teenager? If he did, there would surely be cries about how could an armed man shoot an unarmed boy!? Even if after the fact, the police determined the self-defense was justified and saw no reason to make an arrest, some in the public may call for an arrest and a trial. If no trial was coming, perhaps get the media and a few politicians to put pressure on the district attorney. And if later there was a trial and the man was found not guilty, many in the community might still not be satisfied. They might call for other ways to punish the man, perhaps even other charges if they could get somebody to press them.

Or maybe the man, who was legally able to carry a gun for self-protection, wouldn’t shoot. Maybe the man would simply get knocked to the ground and beat ferociously by the boy, and die from that terrible beating.

We don’t know ahead of time what the outcome will be. We do know that it is possible to be beaten to death. Whether the attempted murderer is a man or a boy, armed or unarmed, doesn’t matter with regard to that. Even unarmed boys can murder.

My point is to be aware of various outcomes of an attack . Judge a case based upon the facts and not based upon the misguided assumption that an unarmed 17 year old boy’s attack can never become lethal.